Love's Blossom
by Nights-into-dreams
Summary: (First person point of view; one shot) Tseng gets ready for another mission to capture Aeris...only this time, he is going to also win her heart. Dark symbolism...


AUTHOR'S NOTE:  Wow…who knew that my writing would extend this far, I mean, into an EIGHTH story?  

Personally, I am really surprised.  Okay, anyway…

I don't own Final Fantasy VII.  I don't even own anything that has FF in the title.  Not even the Fantastic Four…

This story is about Tseng, before he goes out on a mission to try to capture the last Centra on the planet, Aeris.  

Read and review, please!

You can send questions and comments to:  sm_scales (at) yahoo.com

(at)="@" sign.

I hope you enjoy.

*****

Look my dear, I love you.  I know that I don't seem like I would…but I do.  

Surprised?  Yeah, I though you would be.

I fell for you when I saw you for the first time.  That first time when I was ordered by ShinRa to catch you, as you were the last Centra on the planet…I fell for your sweet smile, and that long brown hair that cascades like a garden waterfall down your back, as it twists and turns with every movement of your body…

You are the only reason I even ever bother to go into the field anymore, to leave my desk full of old paperwork and memos…

Be mine.

I exhale with a shuddered breath as I turn away from the mirror in my fourth floor apartment, and face the wall.

_The faded wallpaper is peeling away again_,I note with a soft sigh, as I see the exposing rotting wood beneath it.  Glancing around my place, I also notice for the umpteenth time again that the furniture needs to be re-upholstered…

…the sink needs to be fixed so it can stop making the carpet soggy…

…the lightbulbs need to be changed so I can maybe for once SEE myself at night…

…and actually, I suppose a working bathtub would not hurt too much either…

Great, just great.

How am I supposed to sweep a girl off of her feet if I have an apartment that look like the Midgar dump????

Bowing my head slightly in frustration, I walk over to the sole counter in the whole place, in the living room/kitchen.  Onto of it stands a beer bottle with the only real color that my apartment has.

A single white rose…

She had given it to me the first time we met, when I had gone undercover as a potential flower buyer to try to catch her.  Unfortunately, she got away, yet I still kept that single rose she sold me, by hiding it away in my inside jacket pocket.  I don't know why, but I felt compelled to keep it, flagrantly against ShinRa and Turk policy, for it would be considered evidence of where she might go sometimes.

Aeris…

The name renonsates in my head and escapes through my mouth, where it rushes away, only to shatter itself against the walls, for I dare not let that word escape beyond here.  

After all…she is the enemy.

A Turk in love with the enemy…

Who knew?  

Bet that would be something that Scarlet and Elena could easily make fun of for hours.  

Or at least, convict me on treason…

With a trembling hand, I use my fingertips to take the flower gingerly out of the muddy brown bottle.  Carefully, slowly, I wind the stem of the rose around the flower with my other hand, trapping the fragile blossom behind a curtain of thorns.

I then hold the sculpture in my hand, and look out the nearby cracked glass window at the smoggy world below.

She is… 

…so wonderful…and yet…she probably hates me.  Not that I guess I can't really blame her.  I mean seriously…I did try repeatedly to kidnap her.  That sort of thing does not help to endear oneself to a girl.

My hand tighten slightly on the rose sculpture, and shroud of thorns start to press into my skin.

…I would go anywhere, just to be able to get a hint of that girl's smile.

The thorns rip and tear into my skin, embedding themselves, yet protecting the fragile blossom beneath their care.  

At least, I will get a chance to talk to her tonight, alone.  Sure, it will be during another undercover mission, but still.  I think I will try to win her heart tonight.

No, not think.  I WILL win her heart tonight.  No matter what.  She WILL love me, and only me.  Even if I have to force her to she will.  She simply will not have a choice in the matter…

I feel a sudden pain flare up in my hand, and I tear my eyes away from the window to look down at it.  I see a red fluid leaking and oozing out slowly from between my fingers, and dripping slowly onto the dented living room/kitchen linoleum, forming a small puddle.  S

Slowly, painfully, I open my hand.  Surrounding the flower are dozens of small cuts arc and criss-cross across my palm and fingers, with the shattered remains of the thorned stem scattered throughout them. 

The green thorns contrasts nicely with the blood, I note oddly to myself as I turn my hand onto its side, still holding it in the air.

The rose blossom breaks away from the shattered stem, and flutters away from my hand into the growing blood puddle beneath.  It bobs slightly up and down in the pool as its delicate white purity becomes increasingly ribbed and rimmed by the blood draining out of my body through my hands onto it.

My eyes trace a path from the dying flower back up the trail of falling blood to my cut hand.  I stare at it for a few moments, totally transfixed to the spot.  

Suddenly something snaps, something breaks inside of me, and I find that I can move again.

My unbroken, uncut hand swoops down to the bloody floor, and sweeps up the now dead flower.  I hold it closely to my face as I turn it over again and again.

The white rose is now forever stained by the blood from my hand.

Her purity will be ruined forever by the actions of my hand.


End file.
